"Equal employment won't do a thing for me if transit passes me by on the street or I can't get in the front door". - Elizabeth Gaspard, wheelchair-user
"The key thing is that businesses have to look at the requirements of the ADA differently from other civil rights legislation. Unlike race, gender or religion, disability poses the need for accommodation". - Pat Morrissey, disability consultant and former Senate staffer who worked on the legislation
Structural Reform
After the ADA's passage, the Justice Department attempted to balance the demands of both the business and disability communities. "The law was designed to be a flexible standard. A mom-and-pop store should not carry the same burden as IBM. That would be unfair."
- Pat Wright, director of governmental affairs at DREDF |
"Businesses must remove architectural barriers in existing facilities only when this goal is 'readily achievable,' that is, only when it can be done 'without much difficulty or expense'".
- Wall Street Journal, July 26, 1995
"For example, a store would not have to write all of its price tags in Braille for visually impaired customers; instead, a sales clerk simply would have to be on hand to read prices to such customers. Similarly, rather than lowering drinking fountains at a cost of hundreds of dollars each, building owners may need only to purchase paper cup dispensers to make the water fountains accessible to those in wheelchairs." - CQ Researcher (CQ Press) December 27, 1991 |
The Justice Department released hundreds of pamphlets to help businesses understand the regulations.
^Click Diagrams to Enlarge^
"To assuage corporate concerns and ease compliance, the government has earmarked more than $8 million to establish training programs, hot lines and information clearinghouses... The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the lead enforcer of the ADA workplace provisions, currently fields more than 1000 requests a day". - U.S. News and World Report, July 20, 1992
The Justice Department attempted to disperse commercial concerns while mitigating social prejudices.